What rivalry? Seahawks and 49ers players keep writing respectful things about one another

Hate is usually too strong of a word, but it works in reference to Seahawks and 49ers fans. Seahawks fans think 49ers fans are a bunch of snooty whiners, still drunk off nostalgia from Super Bowl victories that came almost 20 years ago. 49ers fans think Seahawks fans have an inflated sense of their own impact, fostered by a stadium that’s both an architectural marvel and filled with employees who aren’t afraid to pump in a little artificial crowd noise.

The story heading into the NFC Championship Game centered on the so-called “best rivalry in the NFL,” but besides Richard Sherman and Michael Crabtree and some Pac-12 history between Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh, there appears to be a severe lack of animosity between the combatants on both sides.

One of his strengths as a runner is his height. He has such long strides, it causes you to misjudge his speed. It doesn’t look like he’s running that fast. But once you get close to him, his stride is so long, he’s just running away from you.

To watch that guy take over the game — he did a hell of a job of making play after play. That’s a special player right there. He plays for the 49ers, one of our biggest rivals, but I have to take my hat off to him. He played a hell of a game.

He also throws one of the hardest balls in the league, almost like a baseball player, and it comes out like a fastball. Hot. The play I had against Boldin in the end zone, Kaepernick was jumping up in mid-air as he threw. That was a dime. I was kind of surprised he even threw it. They usually don’t when I’m that close in the area.

Boldin kind of gave me the look of a crease route, like a post, so I tried to keep my eyes glued on him. In those situations when a quarterback scrambles, it becomes a little chaotic and you just want to try to stay with your man. Those are tough situations when you have to run in circles with your receiver. He’ll kind of push off as you try to find the quarterback, and now you’re trailing him as the quarterback makes a hell of a throw.

It was good offense vs. good defense and as a defender, I just think it was better offense.

From the looks of that, Thomas sounds like the anti-Sherman. That brings us to some tweets that might tell us how much fans and the media have blown this whole Sherman thing out of proportion.

It probably makes sense to note that Tarell Brown and Anthony Dixon are unrestricted free agents, and while Darryl Morris performed well on special teams in his rookie season he isn’t guaranteed a roster spot in 2014. Any of those three players could become Seahawks next season and it wouldn’t be a shock. However, Michael Crabtree will most certainly be on the 49ers roster in 2014. And it’s safe to assume that he, like most 49ers fans, will root for Denver on Sunday.

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Seahawks fans like to call the 49ers the 'Forty Whiners' because it's a good rhyme. ALL fans complain about a variety of misfortunes happening to their team, so it's more than a little silly for them to pretend that 49er fans are somehow whinier than the rest. Especially considering how much Seahawks fans still whine about the bad calls from their last Super Bowl.

As far as Sherman goes, if the media is hyping anything, it's the effort made to show that he's not a bad guy. Whether he's a good or bad guy is beside the point because he already proved he's an incredibly poor sport. If he wants to be thought of otherwise, it's up to HIM to change his image and not the media or anyone else. That's where the really whining is happening...

It seems like in the NFL more than any other pro sport, that most of the players have a mutual respect for each other, regardless of team. It really is like a brotherhood.

I remember the week leading up to the 49ers-Seahawks matchup at Candlestick, on the news they showed a clip where Vernon Davis said that the 49ers don't like them (them being the Seahawks) and they don't like the 49ers, and then he laughed after he said it, kind of implying that both teams don't really dislike each other. It was just funny that he laughed after that.

Even though the rivalry between these two teams is heating up, there still might be a healthy respect between the two teams, even though Sherman and Baldwin who played at Stanford under Harbaugh, don't really care for Harbaugh to put it mildly.

Almost: it's more like "Goodell & the owners". Remember, the Commissioner is just a toady for his corporate owner overlords at the end of the day. Oh sure, he's the face of NFL management and certainly wields influence, if not power, in his own right; but he serves at the whim of the owners.

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